Can Anyone Explain This Thing...

[Monstrous Mike]

Jeez, yet another waste of bandwidth griping about cables. If you believe in zip cord and someone else wants to spend their money on kilobuck cables why do you care ? I own a $4,500 amp, my neighbor owns $18,000 a pair tube amps. That does not bother me, its his money. With more important things like American military personnel losing their lives in Iraq, 911, etc. why are people so obsessed with the claims of cable manufacturers and what expensive cables someone else likes ? To me, this is like always peeping out of your window like some Mrs. Kravitz (if your don't know, don't ask) minding all that goes on at your neighbor's house. Why care ? As long as weird stuff is not going on at your house, that's all that matters. Its not your money being spent. Whom the cap fits.......

Actually it's the other way around. If you spend a thousand dollars on a cable and are happy with it, that's great. If you come to an audio forum and spout engineering nonsense about the fact that you are happy with your thousand dollar cable because it has this new technology, then you can expect people who have some understanding of physics and engineering to start a dialog questioning said technology.

It's really that simple.

I don't care how you spend your money either. Just don't tell me what technology can and cannot do.

[FLZapped]

Risch, for all his foibles, is closer to reality with his take on dbt than others I have read, IMHO..hearing needs time to reconstruct the imaging..

When the timing relationships and slew rates of a speaker system are modified, does everybody think the human lateralization construct mechanism is instantaneous?? Hmmm?

I got news...it ain't..there's a learning curve..the brain has to re-learn how to construct the image, because a two point source virtual image construct does not present the ears with the correct information...we have to learn by practice, how to construct the virtual image..all the while, ignoring the temporally incorrect "sideband" information.

But who said anything about instantaneous switching being used for such a purpose? (besides Risch, and maybe Curl) The majority of people are going to be concerned with FR changes which is done instantaneously, because science has already shown that is what we are the most sensitive to. I would agree that you use different methods appropriate to what you are seeking.

Laterization, as far as I am concerned is a non-issue, except in controlling the large group delay variances in speaker systems during the manufacturing process so you get consistent results unit to unit so you can avoid the costly need to "match" pairs. Once connected, even if the image is slightly skewed(which could be attributed to many things), it is constant and therefore goes unnoticed...actually, the same holds true for FR variations........

I also don't see people sitting in a chair anchored to their listening room floor with a vice that holds their head perfectly still. So, I suppose in the real workd, the only place one would be concerned with lateralization might be in headphones; as the envoronment where you have speakers unattached to the listener and in a reverberant acoustic space, all bets would be off to gain accurate results.

Enjoy your vacation.

-Bruce

[ToddB]

Maybe it's you breaking in, not your cables.

I'm sure you'd like to think so.

[FLZapped]

I'm sure you'd like to think so.

Considering there is no reliable evidence that points to cable break-in, and the psychological evidence that does suggest this, it's far more likely.

-Bruce

[ToddB]

Considering there is no reliable evidence that points to cable break-in, and the psychological evidence that does suggest this, it's far more likely.

And never in the history of the world has scientific evidence about anything ever been limited, and those limitations later proven to have been leading people to make incorrect conclusions.

Yawn...

[markw]

And never in the history of the world has scientific evidence about anything ever been limited, and those limitations later proven to have been leading people to make incorrect conclusions.

Yawn...

Yeah, later. How much later? Until then, there's much money to be made off those who want desparately to believe.

We're waiting....

[Monstrous Mike]

One possible explanation about what is happening during this process is listed on the product page for the Audio Dharma Cable Cooker, here:

http://www.audioexcellenceaz.com/aud...ablecooker.htm

Their first sentence says it all: "Although it is not yet fully understood scientifically, the phenomenon of "cable break-in" has been experienced by many audiophiles."

It is really quite amazing if you think about it. There are many areas in audio where some component or box or wire or whatever cannot be explained scientifically how it works and even has indicators that it shouldn't work yet somehow engineers can design it to provide a sonic benefit for the audiophile willing to fork over the money to buy it.

Of course there are many phenomenon in life that are not fully understood by science and this does not mean they are not truly happening. However, the best scientific minds are exploring these truly puzzling phenomenon. I highly doubt any Albert Einstein wannabes are working on the life challenge of cable cooking. The only people "working" on that age old scientific puzzle are people out to make a buck.

[Monstrous Mike]

And never in the history of the world has scientific evidence about anything ever been limited, and those limitations later proven to have been leading people to make incorrect conclusions.

Yawn...

Yes, you are correct. Even Stephen Hawking has recently admitted he could be wrong about black holes.

However it is patently laughable to put "cable cooking" in a category of the scientific unknown that includes investigating the universe, finding cures for cancer or AIDS, etc.

I realize your point is that just because we can't explain cable cooking or "run-in", that is not sufficient to conclude it doesn't exist. That point cannot be refuted and is absolutely true. But if you look at the "evidence" for cable cooking, you cannot get past simple anecdotal appraisals. So using your logic, there is a ripe and full history of people claiming to see, hear, smell and experience many different things which have no scientific explaination.

I wouldn't hesitate to speculate that the vast majority of those claims are profoundly untrue, regardless of the fact that it would be impossible to refute them all. And that's what category I put cable cooking in.

[FLZapped]

And never in the history of the world has scientific evidence about anything ever been limited, and those limitations later proven to have been leading people to make incorrect conclusions.

Yawn...

In this case, can you provide any real science? Or is it easier just to dream?

-Bruce

[ToddB]

Yeah, later. How much later? Until then, there's much money to be made off those who want desparately to believe.

You must have somehow managed to overlook the part of my post where I said that IME cables can be burned in while simply being installed in a system and used, which doesn't cost any more money than listening to the system normally would.

[ToddB]

It is really quite amazing if you think about it. There are many areas in audio where some component or box or wire or whatever cannot be explained scientifically how it works and even has indicators that it shouldn't work yet somehow engineers can design it to provide a sonic benefit for the audiophile willing to fork over the money to buy it.

I agree.

I highly doubt any Albert Einstein wannabes are working on the life challenge of cable cooking. The only people "working" on that age old scientific puzzle are people out to make a buck.

Yeah, good old Albert, working away like that for free his whole life...

[ToddB]

However it is patently laughable to put "cable cooking" in a category of the scientific unknown that includes investigating the universe, finding cures for cancer or AIDS, etc.

In level of importance, absolutely. So I guess it's good that I never said it was.

So using your logic, there is a ripe and full history of people claiming to see, hear, smell and experience many different things which have no scientific explaination.

Yeah, you can run with that if you want to, but I was limiting my comment to the "hear" part. The power cord on my Shunyata Guardian did smell pretty bad, though, but that phenomenon's apparently provable.

I wouldn't hesitate to speculate that the vast majority of those claims are profoundly untrue, regardless of the fact that it would be impossible to refute them all. And that's what category I put cable cooking in.

I would agree that's definitely a legitimate position to take. For now, at least.

[ToddB]

In this case, can you provide any real science?

If you're fishing for an admission that I don't have any scientific evidence of break-in, all you had to do was ask, and I would have told you that I don't have any. The surreptitious tact you chose in order to get such an answer was really not necessary.

Or is it easier just to dream?

I won't be asking you again to stop insulting people.

[FLZapped]

You must have somehow managed to overlook the part of my post where I said that IME cables can be burned in while simply being installed in a system and used, which doesn't cost any more money than listening to the system normally would.

That still doesn't provide any basis in fact that this is occuring. -Bruce

[FLZapped]

And never in the history of the world has scientific evidence about anything ever been limited, and those limitations later proven to have been leading people to make incorrect conclusions.

Yawn...

And no one in the history of the world has disproven the scientific laws that govern the behavior of wire. And no one in the history of the world has any valid evidence for "cable break-in."

-Bruce
(Not holding my breath on this one)